Sean was one of the best preachers I've ever heard.
[Sean] When I speak, I know that Jesus
is speaking through me, amen?
[Congregation] Amen.
[Faith] In the holy atmosphere of church,
a youth pastor holds sway over his flock.
Joy joined the youth group to get closer to Sean.
Joy and Sean were inseparable.
[suspenseful music]
Joy knew from the beginning that Sean was married.
[suspenseful music]
But living together just opened the flood gates.
[Faith] Their forbidden love defies the church.
Sean is married to Joy and married to Sheila.
He's in a polygamous relationship.
[dramatic music]
[Faith] And a need for total control.
Sean was a calculated master manipulator.
He was like, this is my girl,
and I'm making her life into what I want it to be.
[Faith] Can quickly turn into...
[dramatic music]
A federal ranger starts taking the rocks apart
from the shrine.
They believed that they in fact had a murdered person.
[Faith] A killer relationship.
[dramatic music]
What kind of a person does that?
A cold-blooded killer does that.
[gentle piano music]
[changes to sinister music]
There's an unbelievable story in every homicide,
but there are some stories and some homicides
that are truly unforgettable.
And this case in particular, is one that even after
all my years of experience focusing on relationships
and families,
blows my mind.
It's a tale of moms and daughters
of the church and spirituality,
of absent fathers and father figures,
of love,
a whole lot of love and death.
And it begins in San Diego in the mid-90s
with a young free spirit named Joy Risker.
[upbeat music]
Joy in high school was super bubbly,
really positive, fun,
very smart and creative.
I don't know how anybody
that hung around Joy for more than an hour,
couldn't have been in love with her.
[Lora]as open-minded, non-judgmental,
she was willing to listen to different opinions and ideas,
and she was also open enough to share her own concerns
or struggles.
[Faith] Seven years earlier,
Joy's father walked out on the family
and the 16-year-old has been searching for a father figure
ever since.
She is just with a single mom.
if she needed something.
In high school, a lot of us had that similar situation,
so we all kind of looked out for each other
and became a nice tight knit group of friends
that were more like family.
I remember hanging out and having a really good time,
we'd party at my house, go to raves.
[upbeat music]
Joy had a little bit of a wild side,
all in good fun.
Joy was straddling that line of being a kid and having fun,
while also trying to maintain respect for her mom.
She would tell us like, I can't go out this Saturday,
because my mom doesn't want me to be going out,
'cause I'm supposed to be going to church on Sunday.
Joy would go to church for her mom's sake.
[Faith] On one of those Sundays at Gwen's church,
Joy and her mom meet a dynamic 27-year-old youth pastor
named Sean Goff.
Sean was one of the best preachers I've ever heard.
[Sean] When I walk, I know that Jesus is walking with me
and when I speak, I know that Jesus
is speaking through me, amen?
He was a very good-looking dude.
He had the power of a Pentecostal minister,
but the intelligence of someone who's actually done
the research and the study on the doctrines
that he is espousing.
Sean worked closely with my father,
who was the chaplain of the church.
And because Sean was a charismatic person,
he was mentioned to me, you know,
as someone I should get to know.
Everything that Sean did, he became a leader in.
[Faith] Gwen believes that Sean is just the right person
to push Joy closer to God
and out of the party circuit for good.
Gwen sought Sean out for advice on how
to get her daughter more involved in the church,
on how to get her daughter to not go to raves,
things like that,
and Sean was willing to help.
[Sean] You see people today, they're walking around
and wearing their feelings on their sleeve,
having problems left and right,
always in some kind of a turmoil.
God is not the most important thing in their life,
it's themselves, amen?
I don't think Joy expected to go to church and meet a man
that's attractive and cool and understanding.
[upbeat music]
Every Friday, our ministry would have chapel,
and Joy would just, you know, dance in the halls.
So Joy joined the youth group to get closer to Sean.
[Faith] In Sean, Joy finds a strong male presence,
while the youth group provides the stability
she's always craved.
She trades nightlife for volunteer work at the church
and ends up becoming Sean's assistant.
For Joy's mom, Gwen, it's a positive development.
At work, Joy and Sean were inseparable.
He came on and started to take care of her
and started to pay attention to her,
things that she hadn't had before in her life.
She had a father figure view towards Sean.
[upbeat music]
We were used to seeing her multiple times a week
and then suddenly it was like getting her out once a week
was tough.
Joy had officially gone on to new adventures.
[upbeat music]
As someone who has gone to church her entire life,
I can tell you, there's a sacred trust
between a youth pastor and his congregant.
Who in this case happens to be a young woman,
who now sees him as a father figure.
And when she's 18, Joy comes to him for guidance.
She was looking for a way to get out of her mother's house
and to be independent.
[Faith] Sean offers Joy a room in the home that he shares
with his wife, Sheila, who's also part of the ministry.
In exchange, he asked Joy to help Sheila keep up the house,
and babysit their newborn son.
Joy loved children, so I could see how that would
also kind of fill that void in her life,
give her that sense of family that she was missing.
They had two bedrooms.
Joy had her own room
and then Sean and Sheila had a room
where they kept their young son with them.
Sean was offering, at least in her mind,
some sort of freedom.
[Faith] Joy's mom, Gwen, is supportive of,
even encouraged by, the move to Sean and Sheila's.
What better person to be sharing a roof with
than your own pastor?
Her daughter is finally on the right spiritual path.
Gwen accepted Sean as a father figure for her.
She saw him as a positive influence.
So now she's got this strong, charismatic man in her life,
who's taking care of her and another young woman,
almost like a sister figure to her.
[Faith] Joy's friends and church community
are also supportive.
They see Joy flourishing
and pastor Sean and his wife, Sheila,
seem to be a great influence on her.
Then, in September, 1997, about a year after Joy moved in,
Sean's friend, Leif, is at the church office one afternoon,
when an unusual message pops up in his inbox.
So Sean and I would email back and forth all the time,
both for work and just for conversation.
And at the very bottom of the email,
I saw a conversation between him and an unknown man.
[Faith] It appears Sean accidentally copied and pasted
a message history that was never meant for Leif's eyes.
It was talking about how Sean was grateful
that he had performed the ceremony to marry him and Joy.
Sean is married to Joy
and married to Sheila --
he's in a polygamous relationship.
[suspenseful music]
If he was outed, it could destroy the ministry.
I was scared when I heard that Joy was missing,
because I didn't believe that she would have run off.
He was very vague about how it happened.
He described as being accidental
and he would use the word kill.
[suspenseful music]
[Faith] Polygamy, it's an illegal practice
in the United States,
but that hasn't stopped 30-year-old,
San Diego-based minister, Sean Goff, from pursuing it.
In August of 1997, Sean takes a second wife, Joy Risker,
the now 19-year-old woman he nurtured, guided and mentored,
when she was yearning for direction
from a male authority figure.
Turns out the couple was married in secret.
[suspenseful music]
I called Sean up and said, this is some abhorrent doctrine
that you're playing with here.
And at first he denied it, until I read him the email,
and then he said, "Okay, that's true."
I'd been friends with him at that point, 15 years.
Even though I didn't approve what he was doing,
I also didn't like the idea of making him lose his job.
[Faith] Exposed, Sean attempts to justify a choice he made
they were all polygamous.
Sean was able to make rational and believable cases
for whatever he was trying to do, based on the scripture.
Each of the wives lived in a separate bedroom
and Sean would just alternate between bedrooms,
and Sheila agreed with it because she was raised
to believe that the man was the ultimate authority.
I actually called Sean's brother and told him
what was going on and what should I do?
His brother has always been no nonsense,
and he said, "You need to tell him he has to tell
the ministry he's working for, or you will."
If he was outed, it could destroy the ministry,
it could cost people their jobs, their livelihoods,
bring disgrace upon people of faith.
He just needed to end his relationship.
[Faith] Sean's brother also gets in touch
with Joy's mother, Gwen, who is shocked to discover
that the man she'd grown to see as her daughter's mentor,
has taken her as his bride.
I don't think her mother was open to the idea of polygamy.
Societally, culturally speaking, even in her church,
it's unacceptable.
But I do think that Sean was so coercive
that he could make her mom believe maybe
it was not so outlandish.
At the same time, she wanted to make Joy feel supported.
[melancholic music]
So Joy's mom finally came around and accepted him
as Joy's husband.
[Faith] With Gwen's support,
Sean feels even more validated and resolute
in the sanctity of his marriage,
and tells Leif
he has no intention of discontinuing his lifestyle.
I had to tell the ministry what he was doing.
And at that point, he was kicked out of church.
I was in complete disbelief.
I told her, I said, "Joy, if you ever want out,
I am here for you."
Joy's response was, "This is what I want,
this is where, you know, God wants me."
[Faith] Now that her secret is out at church,
Joy shows up at a party and shares the news
with her old high school friends.
There was Joy and we hadn't seen her
or heard from her in years.
That just made everybody feel so warm and happy
to see her again.
As the night progressed,
she decided to tell us all
about what had been happening in her life.
I was just, okay,
tell me more about that,
I'm not gonna judge you,
and that was true.
But I also, once the whole story came out and how they met,
I certainly started to have growing concerns.
I felt a bit disappointed to be honest,
because I know Joy was looking for someone to be her guy.
And I don't see how that was gonna happen
in a polygamous relationship.
[Faith] Despite their concerns,
Joy assures her friends that she's happy.
She just swore like, "No, he has a big heart
and he's a good person."
And that he was good for her.
Joy feels isolated.
She's been kicked out of her church community
and she can't fully connect
with her high school friends anymore.
All of this drives her closer to the people who actually
do share her beliefs,
and especially to Sean.
In 2000, when Joy is 22,
she and Sean welcome their first child,
a son named Snow.
The family is elated by its new addition,
but the next day, they receive heartbreaking news.
[melancholic music]
Joy's mother died the day after her child was born.
[melancholic music]
Joy really cared about her mom a lot,
and I think wanted to make her mom proud of her.
It was just the two of them, that was it,
that's who Joy had, you know, was her mom.
And now her mom is gone.
Without her mom and friends around,
Joy and Sheila started off a little rough,
they had arguments,
but I think they just liked each other.
Sheila would watch the boys when Joy was at work or school
and Joy would watch the boys whenever Sheila was at work.
Sheila said she saw Joy as a sister.
[dramatic music]
A year later, Joy discovers she's pregnant once again.
Sean decides to hold a shower
and invite some of Joy's old church friends.
I went to the baby shower of her second child
and she seemed to be the old Joy that I knew.
We were playing all the baby shower games,
so measuring the belly and different things,
then Sean seemed to be in rare form.
Just, I'm in charge and I'm the boss,
and look at my world.
I avoided really speaking with him,
I wasn't sure what I would say 'cause this was
not the situation that I wanted my friend in,
but I went because I wanted to support her.
Nine months later, Joy and Sean are invited to attend
one of her high school friend's weddings.
This was the first time we met Sean.
Sean definitely had a commanding presence with her,
like, go get me another drink,
go get me, do this.
And it was like, this is my girl
and I'm making her life into what I want it to be.
It was clear that she was feeling stuck and not happy.
She did say that they were arguing more
and that she had shared that she wanted more freedom.
He never let her out of his sight that night.
Sean was very controlling and very much trying
to dominate her.
[dramatic music]
I remember her saying, "I don't wanna hurt Sean,
but I'm also not happy."
I made the assumption that she was trapped, in a way.
At the wedding, we all made plans to see each other again
real soon, and she said, she'd get a hold of us.
[suspenseful music]
[Faith] But Joy never does get a hold of them.
And when they try to reach out to her,
their calls go unanswered.
Okay, we've been calling her, no word.
We went by her house, no word.
And then we find out, it was about a week,
nobody's heard from her.
And when we found out that her kids were at home,
we knew something was definitely wrong.
That was immediately, there's something wrong.
[dramatic music]
It's late September of 2003
and 25-year-old Joy Risker's friends fear she's missing.
The last time they saw her, Joy divulged that she's
in a polygamous marriage with a preacher named Sean Goff.
And she's really unhappy.
Joy's friends started calling Sean,
saying, "Where is Joy?
What happened?"
He told them that Joy had run off to Europe
and that she had left the kids behind
and that he was distraught.
I was scared when I heard that Joy was missing,
because I didn't believe that she would have run off.
I didn't think that she would do that to her kids.
It didn't seem right.
Worried that they still haven't heard from her,
Joy's friends reach out to law enforcement on October 5th
and report her missing.
One of the things that's so interesting about this story,
is that those friends don't say anything to police
about her polygamous marriage.
It's an important fact to leave out.
[suspenseful music]
This was my second month in that unit.
So up to then all my cases were pretty mundane.
It was, you know that wife that took off?
Oh, she came back the next day.
A great majority of missing person cases,
people would eventually come back.
So I received the report
and first I talked to Joy's husband.
Sean said to Linda, that Joy left him
and that he was stuck with the kids,
that she had taken money.
He just seemed off balance and distraught
and upset about what had happened.
He said Joy had reconnected with an old boyfriend
and that they had exchanged emails
and they had decided to backpack through Europe together.
So I asked for her email.
I needed more information about the boyfriend.
Detective Koozin also reaches out to Joy's friends
to see what they may know.
[melancholic music]
A few friends said they did receive emails after she left,
stating that she had run off with an old friend
and that she just needed time.
There were a couple of friends that said,
"Yeah, I could see her, you know, just taking off.
She's always talked about wanting to go to Europe,
so I could see her doing that."
The messages seemed to lend support to Sean's statement,
but those closest to Joy feel that something is off.
I was contacted by detectives
and I was just like, there is no, no, no way,
ever, she would do that.
She would not have left her children,
just, no matter what.
In the back of my mind, I'm thinking,
no, she wouldn't have left her two sons,
but then I'm thinking,
I don't know, would she, or wouldn't she?
She's so much younger than him.
The way their friends described her, very happy-go-lucky,
she had all these things she wanted to do.
Was she a person who could say, you know, "I need to take
time out for myself and improve myself
and then come back and be a better person,
be a better mother."
[Faith] Keeping an open mind,
detective Koozin looks deeper into the email Sean provided
and makes contact with Joy's ex-boyfriend
and supposed lover.
He was living in Massachusetts,
and he said, "Yeah, we had texted back and forth
I think once,
but it was just kinda like, hey, how's it going?
Kind of thing, but no, we don't have any plans,
we weren't gonna meet."
And he hadn't seen her for years.
I believed him.
If Joy didn't run off with her ex,
where could she be?
[suspenseful music]
Now we knew we had to get going on this one,
we needed to find her immediately.
[Faith] Considering that maybe Joy didn't just
run off on her own, the detectives decide
to examine Joy's phone activity over the last few weeks,
hoping to uncover any cell tower locations
that might point to her whereabouts.
The last call that Joy had made was to Sean.
That last call from Joy's phone was placed
at 9:34 PM on September 19th, 2003.
Sixteen days prior to her friends reporting her missing.
Joy's phone records completely drop off after that.
There's no more interactions with friends,
cell site, nothing.
Anyone who's ever watched a true crime show can tell you
that when a cell phone goes dead,
it's not a good sign.
Either Joy got rid of her phone when she left,
or someone did it for her.
But what's even more troubling to investigators,
is that Sean never mentioned anything about Joy's last call
in his initial interview.
Sean was withholding.
That was a big red flag for me.
I called Sean and I asked him about that.
He said that weekend that Joy had disappeared,
they had had a big argument
and he had left the house.
Joy had called, asking him to come back,
that they needed to talk about it.
And so he came back,
they went to bed
and then the next morning he woke up
and he saw Joy leaving with two suitcases
and getting into a car and driving off.
[dramatic music]
And it's like, Sean, why didn't you mention that before?
That's big.
[dramatic music]
Twenty-five-year-old Joy Risker was last seen
almost three weeks ago.
Her husband Sean has just revealed important details
to detectives in San Diego.
Details he failed to provide in his initial interview.
To me, it was odd that he waited so long
to go into detail on how he knew that Joy had left.
Very good friend of Joy's told me
"Well, you know he has another wife."
[suspenseful music]
He's married to Sheila and to Joy
and they live together in the house.
I mean, all this time, I've been talking to people
and they were holding that back.
It's like, why didn't you tell me that?
During the first calls, they thought Joy might come back.
And so they thought, well, when she comes back,
is she gonna get in trouble?
Now she's been gone for how long?
Well, maybe she's not coming back.
[Faith] The startling revelation forces Detective Koozin
to reconsider everything she's learned so far.
That's where you got to go sit down, okay,
and then you read through all this stuff again.
[Faith] Along with Sean, it also provides her
with another person of interest.
Sheila, the other wife lived in the house.
I mean, what was her relationship with Joy?
[suspenseful music]
I did some work on Sheila and then just showed up
at her workplace.
It's always best to do a little surprise.
We told her we're looking into the Joy Risker
missing person case and she was a little shocked.
And so Linda starts to question,
"Did she let you know that she was leaving?
Did she leave any clothes behind?"
And Sheila was like, "Well, I don't know.
She just left and didn't say anything."
That's when she told me that the weekend Joy
had disappeared, she had gone to Santa Barbara
with the three kids.
When I asked Sheila why she went to Santa Barbara,
she said, "Well, Sean wanted a special weekend with Joy."
She goes, "Yeah, I came back and Sean just said she had gone."
Yeah, that was interesting.
You have to question why would Sheila
not question Joy missing or leaving her children?
[ominous music]
She had explained to us that Sean and Joy were
having problems, so she thought that makes sense to me.
[Faith] Investigators aren't sure if Joy is
dead or alive,
or if Sheila has anything to do
with her disappearance,
but it's looking more and more plausible
that Sean did.
It's a red flag that Sean would want Sheila
and all three kids out of the house the weekend
that Joy disappeared.
Also, why didn't he tell me about Sheila before?
So I said, "Hey, you know, is it okay
if I come over tomorrow morning?"
He said, "Yeah, nine o'clock, fine."
But I never got there because that evening,
he actually went into the police department.
Linda Koozin, by questioning him,
asking for phone records,
interviewing Sheila,
puts so much pressure on him that he felt he needed
to come to the police station to explain himself.
[dramatic music]
[Faith] When Sean arrives at the
San Diego Police Department headquarters,
he meets with veteran detective John Tefft.
We take him into the interview room.
I introduced myself to him.
He basically tells me about the relationship,
that he had this relationship,
that he had two wives and that this wife
wanted to go missing.
He then told me that there was an accident
and that she was killed.
[suspenseful music]
there's a difference between killing someone
and murdering someone.
You may be driving down the street and someone jumped
in front of you and you run over and kill them,
doesn't mean you murdered them.
Murder has malice of forethought.
So obviously he knew the difference,
I clearly knew the difference,
and so we would dance around this.
[dramatic music]
The more I pressed him about the details
of this accidental killing,
the more I pressed him about the details of where her body is.
At that point, he then says,
"I don't wanna talk to you anymore,
I'd like to have an attorney."
So we ended the interview.
We arrested him for murder and we put in jail.
[dramatic music]
We are looking at a hacksaw,
a shovel,
an ice pick,
a sledge hammer,
a tarp.
After claiming she left their family of her own free will,
Sean Goff, a minister,
spiritual guide
and a trusted mentor to his young wife,
knows exactly what happened to her.
She's not missing,
Joy Risker is dead.
[suspenseful music]
He was very vague about how it happened.
He described it as being accidental
and he would use the word kill.
I would use the word murder and he would correct me.
No, "I killed her, I didn't murder her."
[suspenseful music]
[Faith] The partial confession is enough
to keep Sean in jail for 72 hours,
but not enough to charge him with murder.
The race is on to gather evidence.
And the first stop is back at Sean's home,
with his other wife.
I interviewed Sheila, and when I sat down with her,
I don't know if Sheila is just a key witness
or is she a co-conspirator?
So I was very understanding, I was talking to her
and Sheila says she is with the kids in Santa Barbara,
Sean calls her says, "Hey, Joy's gonna move on,
she's gonna leave and in fact, when you get home,
she's not gonna be here,
and I won't be here
'cause I'm gonna assist her in her moving on,
and when you get home,
there was an accident.
We had a little minor accident,
wasn't a big deal."
He said, "When Joy left, she got injured
and there might be some blood in the room.
Can you go home and clean up the mess?"
At the time, Sheila,
she didn't even ask why or what happened.
Instead, she chose to believe Sean.
That's the kind of hold he had on her.
You have to remember,
Sheila had been controlled by his manipulations for years.
So, at that point, she was inclined to believe him,
almost no matter what he said.
When I was talking to her, Sheila was cooperative,
she answered my questions, she appeared very candid.
[dramatic music]
We had to run down leads involving her,
like checking her gas, credit cards,
to see if she went to the hotel,
how long was at the hotel?
What was her cell site,
her phone records?
What did they depict?
[Faith] The receipts and cell tower information
confirm Sheila was in Santa Barbara with the kids
the weekend of Joy's disappearance.
We were very confident that she was not involved
in making Joy disappear.
[Faith] With Sean still in jail on the 72-hour hold,
detectives ask Sheila if she'll consent to a search
of their home.
She agrees.
There's chemicals that our forensic people spray
where blood will illuminate
even though you've cleaned it up
and you've you think you got it all,
it's still in the cracks,
it's in the crevices of the floor.
When people get stabbed,
blood will spatter and go places
and you can tell the directionality
of what's going on.
There were droplets of blood on some of the walls
in the living room
and the bedroom --
as if someone bled
and was moving at the same time.
Like possibly being chased
or trying to get away from someone.
The victim was stabbed multiple times.
It appeared to end in the bathroom,
where there was large pools of blood.
During the search,
detectives also gain access to Sean's computer.
When we collected the computer,
a forensic examination was done
and the emails that were sent to Joy's friends
came from this computer
that belonged to Sean.
We've now connected Sean to the computer
and the emails.
[dramatic music]
The forensic evidence at the house
is enough to charge Sean with murder,
but he still isn't talking.
And without Joy's body to prove the case
beyond a reasonable doubt,
I can tell you as a former prosecutor,
it's going to be difficult securing a conviction at trial.
So investigators get a warrant
for Sean's credit card statements,
hoping to track his movements the weekend Joy went missing.
And fingers crossed,
to ultimately locate her body.
We are looking at his credit cards
prior to Joy going missing
and then we found out
that he made a purchase at a hardware store.
[suspenseful music]
A hacksaw,
a shovel,
an ice pick,
a sledgehammer,
a tarp.
[ominous music]
We never found those items afterwards.
So Sean knew that he was gonna kill her
ahead of time.
And we also learn that he had rented a car
when Joy went missing
and he drove it 800 miles.
From the mileage on the rental car,
detectives believe that Sean may have disposed of Joy's body,
somewhere approximately 400 miles from San Diego,
but that still leaves an area of more than
half-a-million square miles where her remains could be.
And that hopelessness is an unsettling reality
for Joy's friends and family.
[melancholic music]
We just wanted to find her body
so that she can be properly laid to rest.
I was just pissed and sad.
When he turned himself in,
he was definitely presenting himself
as the one who was hurt.
It was just lies.
[melancholic music]
[Faith] Law enforcement search turns up nothing.
But three months later, in January, 2004,
two hikers walking along a trail,
discover something horrifying,
in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Almost exactly 400 miles away from San Diego.
They could smell decomposition.
They saw this little debris of rocks,
like a little makeshift grave.
[dramatic music]
A federal ranger comes out and he starts
taking the rocks apart from the shrine
and he notices an arm.
[suspenseful music]
And hair.
from a pile of rocks in the Arizona desert,
on January 10th, 2004.
[dramatic music]
The bones on the face were crushed,
through the bone marrow and then put it in their data bank.
When the DNA was submitted into
the FBI national data bank,
it connected to the San Diego data bank
and you've got it.
[Faith] It's enough for prosecutors to feel ready
to go to trial.
And in July, 2006,
Sean finds himself,
not in front of a wrapped congregation of devotees,
but rather a jury of his peers.
He tried to make it look like she came after him
with a knife and that they struggled with this knife
and he stabs her accidentally,
but then he panicked and stabbed her a second time.
[Sean] At that point, she kind of just went limp.
I couldn't believe that she was dead.
If I call the police,
they're gonna arrest me,
they're going to charge me with murder
and I'll be away from my kids forever.
It seemed totally fake.
And his fake cry was ridiculous.
[Faith] Law enforcement agrees.
After a thorough investigation,
their theory on Joy's fate
and her husband's role in it,
is spine-chilling.
Just based on the things that he did
and how manipulating and controlling that he was,
it appeared to me that he was
the kind of person that did not want her to leave him.
That that would kind of be like, I would say,
kind of leave a stain on him, like, you know,
you're not this perfect guy.
So I think Joy ended up wanting to meet with Sean.
She wanted to leave,
she expressed that she was gonna leave,
but Sean somehow managed to lure Joy to having dinner
at a restaurant.
When they get back to the house,
Sean came after her with a knife.
The way the blood was captured on the wall,
showed she was chased.
There was multiple stab wounds,
not two, more than that.
And she eventually goes down,
the large pools of blood showed that she was later
taken into the bathtub
and we believe that's where she was dismembered.
[ominous music]
He thinks that he can get away with the perfect crime
by removing her fingers,
by removing her teeth.
He then took these various parts of her body
and then he traveled from San Diego to Phoenix
and he would stop periodically behind like dumpsters
and dumped the various parts
and continue moving east
until he had basically her torso left.
He went off the road and took a shovel
and then he buried her there.
He basically covered her with rock
and made like a grave.
And when he got back to the house,
Sean sent these emails to people,
making it seem like Joy sent the emails.
When you take everything in totality
and you put it all together,
the evidence is there.
The premeditation,
the malice,
behind closed doors,
the real evil comes out.
[suspenseful music]
[Faith] After five days of testimony,
the jury comes back with a verdict in just three hours.
We, the jury in the above entitled cause,
find the defendant, Sean Barclay Goff,
guilty of the crime of murder.
[suspenseful music]
[Faith] Sean is sentenced to 26 years behind bars.
He's currently serving his time at Valley State Prison
in Chowchilla, California.
I don't think it's possible to feel like
justice can be fully served,
because what he did is forever,
and he still gets to live.
And the extra victims in this whole story
are the children.
I just hope that they know truly,
how wonderful their mother was.
Joy was too vibrant, she was too big
for someone as small-minded as Sean.
[melancholic music]
Sean Goff twisted the words of the Bible,
to justify his behavior.
His marriages to both Sheila and Joy were not about love
or commitment
or devotion to anything
except his all-consuming need to exert control.
And when Joy pushed back against that control
and wanted to leave him,
rather than letting her go,
he turned their marriage
into a killer relationship.
[ominous music]